To implode about DH ruining my clothes every fucking week.

[Aplatterofpuss]

DH is an Oxbridge educated 50 year old man with a good job in computer programming.
We have been married for 10 years.
He gets the mental load stuff and does the lion’s share of the domestic stuff during the week as I’m a teacher and work longer hours.

I have taught him how to do the laundry 450 bazillion times. I have shown him. I have told him. We have hammered it out in couples therapy that it’s not an exclusively female skill-set to be able to simply wash plain whites, light colours, dark colours in batches, read the care labels on everything and basically treat all the clothes as if they’re his musical equipment.

After thrashing this out in therapy a few weeks ago and him apologising profusely and insisting he does care and is sorry, I came home last weekend to him having washed coloured items with whites rendering many of my things grey and ruined. I was angry. It was not nice.

We again, talked about it. He blamed me because he’s found some bits on the floor by the washing machine and ASSUMED that they were sorted by me so just bunged them all in together.

This Saturday, I woke up, separated ALL of the washing in to separate piles on the landing, put the dark wash on and went to leave the house. DH asked me if the laundry on the landing had been sorted by me and I said yes.

When I returned, I emptied the fucking washing machine to find lots of my white clothes ruined by the fact that he’d put blue tea towels, multicoloured teatowels and white and blue towels in with my pure white knickers and tops.

I told him I was annoyed and that he must be doing this because they’re not his belongings.
I said that he needed to pay me back for my damaged clothes and that if I decided to put his laptop in the dishwasher and insist I did care and I didn’t mean to damage it he would be furious. He said it was obviously not the same thing and was, again, very sorry.

I amso so so angry.

Buy some colour catchers. I wash everything together (without them) and have never had a problem.

If he didn’t want to do it he could just say so 😂😂

Just quietly spoiling someone’s clothes every week is weirdo behaviour

This. Good luck, there will be more to get sorted than just the laundry.

Why is it gross? The entire point of a washing machine is to get washing clean.

What temperature are you washing at?

If you’ve had this argument so many times, you’re at couples therapy for it then why on earth aren’t you doing the laundry?

It's hard to see how you can use the excuse that because you’re a teacher you’re too busy. It really only takes 60 seconds to put the wash on, your husband could hang it out when it’s finished.

He obviously thinks (correctly) that life is too short to think about it much! I don't understand where some people are buying their clothes because I don't think I've ever had a "running incident" and I sure as hell don't spend my time separating out laundry.

Aye, he’s doing it on purpose

You know, I am always taken aback when people on MN say that it isn’t a big deal when someone ruins someone else’s laundry.

Depending on what it is, a washing machine load of my clothes could easily cost a few hundred pounds. And my stuff isn’t all that fancy.

Wrecking clothes because someone can’t be bothered to read the labels is the financial equivalent of backing your car into fences because you can’t be arsed to look in the rear view mirror.

This is the problem. The amount of times Ive shown OH a sheet or pillow case that has a tinge of blue about it, he denies it, cant see it. If he could see it, he probably wouldnt be bothered, whereas I like bright sparkling white pristine stuff. Just how I bought it and just how it went in the machine (the first time)

Buy colour catchers and then no need to sort

Where are you buying your clothes??? The 1925 princess shop?

It's RUINED oh it's simply RUINED

weeps in taffeta

The pratt would forget to use them.

wow!!

Do you have such cheap clothes @Aplatterofpuss that you can risk them being ruined time and time again and even paying for therapy to discuss it?

Second Q: Do you live in such a small house you have no space for your OWN baskets (all that you need) to sort your own clothes?

Third, will your teaching job suffer if you do your washing when you have 1 hour to put it in and wait for it to come out and put it away? If yes, can you swap with some of his many duties so you can do your own washing?

In other words, I have no idea how you and your marriage really got to this.

Well, my clothes are expensive and the thought of anyone ruining them by accident or otherwise is just not a risk I am willing to take. My handbags (again costly and because I look after all my stuff, they last for years and years and I get my money's worth!) have also never touched the floor/carpet- something my DH had to learn for when he held them for me for whatever reasons.

@Georgyporky fair 😂😂

Hi OP, I totally get where you are coming from and why you are annoyed and upset. I am very particular re laundry requirements and separating whites/lights/darks etc. I think the best longterm solution is to do your own washing and perhaps divide another household chore

Take over sorting the laundry. Buy a load of washing baskets and when a load is ready to be washed label it, temp and type of wash for him to do.

Or give in gracefully and do your washing yourself.

Is this still just about laundry or is there more to it.

I'd be pissed off too. My DH also doesn't get this. I do ALL our laundry - mine, his, DCs, bedding, every last tea towel. He does all the washing up and empties/fills the dishwasher. Separating him from the laundry was the only thing that worked with us after many of my beautiful wool items got shrunk.

What the hell are you buying, that nothing is colour fast? Tea towels that leak colour? Really?

Just do the washing, though. It sounds as though he does plenty of other things and he seems a nice guy. Just make that one of your jobs and offload another to him.

This is so strange- Are they special care clothes? Because aside from the first test wash with new clothes most of ours just go into a 30/40 degree wash.

Also Op I’m so sorry but you sound terrifying and it sounds like you’re making assumptions- washing is something some are good at, some aren’t, some enjoy it, some don’t. Really surprised people the majority of people think yanbu

If he wants to look like a lazy scruff then let him do his own washing and you do yours op, he clearly has no respect for you so he won't do it properly anyway.

Yes. It is one of those baskets that’s already labelled lights and darks.

Well my husband wouldn’t be so incompetent to wash his crisp white shirts with his black socks or jumpers. Nor would his friends.
It would not be on to look scruffy at work. And a waste to just buy new clothes because of simply being lazy. But some people are fine with it, and that’s up to them. You do you.